Asparagus Salad with Orzo and Pine Nuts

Spring is here in this windy city (SF, in this case). Today San Francisco turned 163, and we celebrated the spring weather with some delicious inspiration care of Stephanie’s daydreamings on her commute home, and our trusty weekly box from Terra Firma Farms.

This orzo salad really shines a light on how good the simple ingredients are. From the fresh asparagus to the rivetingly expensive Mediterranean pine nuts,  the quality counts. We used fancy Tuscan olive oil for the dressing, and it was worth it!

Also, we’re trying to step up the quality of the photography in this here blog. We remembered to use a real camera instead of a cell phone!

We’ve missed you all, sorry for the extended absence.

Montreal-Style Smoked Meat (Brisket)

Well, things have been slow here on the Stephanie and Dave Cook blog, mostly because we’ve been cooking more and writing less. We’ve missed several opportunities to talk about food we made, but just had to share this one: The Montreal Style Smoked Meat/Brisket we made for the holidays. As Cruiser (one of the other contributors to the effort) said, when you invite jews to cook for Christmas dinner, you might end up getting brisket on rye sandwiches and latkes!

This recipe came from The Mile End Cookbook, a book Dave’s mom was so excited about she got copies for everyone in both our families! Everything from it has been fabulous. Since the recipe is from the book, I can’t share it verbatim, but the book is definitely worth it.

The basic notion is this: Start with a whole, uncut brisket. Rub it with salt and spices, and cure it in the fridge for two weeks. Then, smoke it with hardwood chips in a smoker for 8 to 12 hours. Then, after letting it rest a day or more, steam it for several hours till it’s soft and tender. Slice carefully across the grain, and serve on rye bread with mustard. This basic description doesn’t nearly do justice to the divine flavor and texture we achieved with this recipe!

Ceviche Three Ways

Stephanie LOVES ceviche. She spent the better part of a year a while back in Peru, and returned with a craving for peruvian-style raw fish that is hard to satisfy. So, whenever we have an opportunity to buy tasty, fresh, lighter-bodied fish, we jump on it. Usually we just ask whoever is working behind the fish counter what is freshest and if it is good enough quality for ceviche/sushi. They typically know.

Well, it turns out there is a FABULOUS place in Morro Bay where we sometimes vacation called Tognazzini’s Dockside Too Fish Market that has delicious fish sandwiches and BBQ oysters, and sells raw fish fresh off the california coast boats. The last time we went there we got carried away and bought almost two lbs of raw local rockfish. Since we didn’t want to get bored halfway through the Ceviche, we decided to do it three different ways.

Eggplant, Kale, and Tempeh

It’s fall, and Stephanie LOVES eggplants, so we had a few in the fridge from the farmer’s market this weekend up in Boonville (that trip could be a blog post in itself). I looked to Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian for inspiration, and his section on eggplant had it. I took his thoughts about sautéed eggplant, and came up with a dish that used several other fall-ish ingredients we had in our fridge. The end result, a sautéed fall vegetable and tempeh dish served over Quinoa, is a warm, filling, high protein vegan feast for after a long rainy day (yes, we get cold rainy days even in California). We served it with salad and steamed artichokes!

Note that we used some roasted tomatoes we had made a few days earlier. While they really added delicious sweet/savory flavor, roasting tomatoes especially for this dish, simple as it is, might be overkill. Still, you could roast a whole pan of them, use half, and have some left over, which is a great way to take advantage of California’s habit of having AMAZING tomatoes for sale cheap near the end of the season.

Sautéed Eggplant with Kale, Tempeh, and Thyme

Roast Acorn Squash with Corn, Sausage, and Gruyere

Well, its fall, and that means time for squash (and eggplants, and root vegetables, and…). Well, actually, it’s not fall in San Francisco, as the weather was clear, sunny, and in the mid 80’s. But, we had those squash anyways, so we went against the weather and had a rich, filling baked stuffed squash. It worked with a cold beer, a really nice session ale from Firestone-Walker brewery, the 805 Ale.

Baked Stuffed Squash with Corn, Sausage, and Gruyère